A group led by Pat Quinn sponsored the initiative, collecting about 375,000 signatures to put it on the ballot.[1]

Question 1 was on the ballot two years after the unsuccessful 1978 ballot measure known as the Illinois Initiative, which was also sponsored by Pat Quinn. When the petition drive to collect signatures to qualify the measure for the 1978 measure started, members of the Illinois General Assembly drew two years' advance pay at the start of each two-year session. As the petition drive gained momentum, the legislature pushed through a bill to end that practice.[1] The proposed 1978 amendment was the object of a lawsuit before it went to the ballot; the result of this lawsuit was that the Illinois Supreme Court removed it from the ballot on the grounds that it violated the part of the Illinois Constitution that says that citizen initiatives can only deal with "structural and procedural" aspects of Article IV of the Illinois Constitution.[1]